Breath and Bone

by Carol Berg

  But when I sat up again, all I could think was how fine the sun felt on my back, and how soft the earth under my knees, and I could not help but sag into a formless heap on the stream bank, mumbling something to Kol about taking just one moment to consider all I’d learned.

  Rosemary and basil. Fish. My stomach near caved in upon itself at the fragrant wood smoke. I blinked and stirred, grimacing at the twigs and pebbles embedded in my ribs. One numb hand prickled painfully as I raised my head. An odd coating of ash dirtied that hand, and I tried for a goodly while to brush it away before remembering that the livid marks were a part of me. I sat up quickly.

  Thin blue smoke rose from a patch of sandy stream bank a few paces from my feet and dispersed slowly above a sea of yellow grass and the green islands of Picus’s garden plots. A bundle wrapped in blackened leaves sizzled in the little fire—the source of the savory smells. Though steep-angled sunlight sculpted the nearby slopes, deepening the colors of the meadow to ocher and emerald and highlighting the splash of dark trees to either side, iron-gray clouds obscured Aesol Mount and all else to the east and south of us. I stretched and shivered, then stepped closer to the little fire and sat on my haunches.

  Kol danced in the yellow grass, or rather practiced, I guessed, as he repeated a particular spinning leap for the fifth time. I felt no stirring in the earth or magic in the still, cold autumn afternoon. He stopped, stretched out first one leg behind him and then the other, bent himself in an impossible arc to one side and then another while clasping his hands at his back. Then he began again. Arms set in a graceful upward curve, now step, leap into the air higher than my head, spin with legs straight together, land like a settling leaf. Shake out the tight legs. Step back. Pause. Arms up, step, leap, spin. Step back…Whatever difference might exist between one exemplar and the next was far too subtle for my judgment. How could a man force his body into such feats?

  I rose onto my toes, then bent my knees and jumped as high as I could, doing my best to turn but halfway round as I did so. My leap might have cleared the height of a small dog, and my feet struck earth so hard I rattled my teeth and came near falling in the fire. How could one even begin without music?

  I squatted and touched the earth, not seeking, so much as wondering…and laughing a little…at what strange byways my thoughts traveled nowadays. Not so long ago my mentor was tidy Brother Sebastian, and my worst trouble the good brother’s scolding me for a dirty cowl or discovering my inability to read. Danae did not read. Danae danced, healed, and moved, soundless and graceful, through the world like the bird that glided in circles high above the meadow.

  “Hast thou failed in attentiveness and burnt my fish, rejongai?” Somehow Kol had come up behind me without my knowing.

  I jumped up, my face blooming hotter than the coals. “I didn’t know you intended me to—”

  But the arch of his eyebrow and a particular compression of his lips gave me to believe, of a sudden, that I had no need to defend myself against his charge. And in the moment I comprehended that, I understood a number of other things.

  “You have bested me, uncle, I’ll confess it. All my claims of strength and endurance and learning crumbled at your assault. I suppose I’m fortunate that I didn’t step off a cliff. I could neither have walked one more step nor imbibed one more lesson, which, I’m coming to think, is one of those very lessons you wish me to learn. And if you truly relied on me to heed your cooking, you’re neither so wise a vayar as I’m coming to suspect nor so vigilant a guardian.”

  “To recognize a body’s limits is surer protection than gards or human magic. I have pledged to ensure thy safety. The lesson had to be taught.” He retrieved a stick and arranged the coals piled about his wrapped fish. “In truth thou didst surpass every boundary I foresaw. And I am not sure what to do about that.”

  My hopes, despite the tempering of truth, surged anew. His manner invited me to broach the most important topics again. “Relagai…”

  The sunlight vanished. I shivered and searched for words sufficient to express my need. Snowflakes drifted from the overripe clouds. A red-tailed hawk circled lazily above the meadow. Kol turned his fish with a stick, frowned, and glanced upward. He sat up sharply.

  “Valen,” he said, eyes fixed on the bird. “Canst thou find Picus’s house, by gard or eye or thy human magic?”

  Of a sudden, the air thrummed with danger. My gaze swept the forest edge and the ash tree where he’d sat when I joined him in the night, then shot up to the bird, which had completed a loop and now arrowed toward Kol. I had walked here from the hut without any magic. “I believe so. What’s wrong?”

  “Kneel and bow thy head so the bird cannot note thy unmarked skin. Do it now.” His command brooked no question. “When I leave the meadow, be off to Picus and await my return. Or Stian’s. Do not walk the world unguarded.”

  I did as he said, extending my legs and bending over them in one of his stretching postures. The only reason to hide my unmarked face and groin would be to pass me off as a mature Dané. Which meant that someone—the bird’s master?—must be watching. “Who’s coming?”

  “Hush.” He tossed his stick into the fire and rose. Wings ruffled. “In the Canon, bird, and honor to thy master and mistress.” I felt no presence save Kol and the bird. “Fortunately I’ve completed both work and practice this day, thus can answer their summons promptly.”

  No one responded. My uncle’s chilly declarations seemed directed solely to the bird.

  “I prefer to travel uncompanioned, as you know, but of course, I cannot prevent thee. Wait…”

  Kol’s hand rested lightly on my back for a moment. “It seems Tuari and Nysse require my presence, Jinte. Keep thy spine stretched and loose until the finger numbness subsides. ’Tis the surest method for relief.”

  I waved a hand and shifted my position slightly as if heeding his advice…as if the bird might remember my false name or how I had responded to the prompting. The evening’s chill settled deeper.

  The wings ruffled again and flapped, and after a moment, a sidewise glance showed Kol striding down the meadow and the hawk gliding in lazy circles above him. Once they had vanished into the evening, I jumped up and raced into the wood in search of Picus and Saverian. Kol’s abandoned fish had charred to ash.

  Chapter 17

  “The messenger bird is like to be a friend of the archon, one who failed to make the fourth passage.” By the light of the twig lantern, Picus picked bits of leaf and thorn from a sheep’s skin. “ ’Tis the common fate of those who cannot dance their Danae magic well enough or learn the skills required of them.”

  “They’re forced to become birds if they fail to make the fourth passage?” Saverian paused in her frenetic pacing to gape at Picus as if he’d said Magrog himself would sit down with us to dine.

  Saverian’s relentless urgency had me gobbling much too fast. The woman had come near taking off my head with an oak limb when I refused to leave straightaway to take her home to Renna. The woman and the monk were bundled in cloaks and blankets, while I sat comfortably on the snow-dusted ground in shirt and braies, sopping up Picus’s boiled turnips with a wad of doughy bread. Though I mourned Kol’s fish, I would have relished far worse than the monk’s meager fare by this time. Evidently two full days had passed since I’d gone off with Kol.

  “None are forced into bird form,” said Picus, scratching his arms thoughtfully before returning to his wool picking, “unless they’ve sore trespassed their Law, in which case their new form would more like be stone or snake. The alter choice for failure is to live on as a hunter, artisan, weaver, or some such like, and such is not a happy life for a Dané. While their fellows dance, their own bare faces wrinkle and their bodies fail near quick as us human folk. Without a sianou they will ever feel rootless and lost. Most prefer inhabiting bird or beast to such shame, though I’ve always been of a mind ’tis a perversion of the ordo mundi as if ’twere I had walked into Navronne as king instead of my good prince. But at the le
ast, they choose it for themselves.”

  My hand paused twixt bowl and mouth, soup dripping from the bread onto my knees. “The hawk was a person, then, thinking and listening…” Which explained Kol’s little deception. A person…trapped in that feathered body. And in Moth’s owl, too. I had already decided that Moth, not Kol, had led me into murder in the bogs. I shuddered.

  “Nay. No person. ’Tis said they lose most faculties, retaining only what wit their companions especially nurture.” Which made sense if the person had no soul to begin with.

  I stuffed the bread into my mouth, making sure to savor every morsel. I’d sworn not to think of souls. I’d plenty more worries closer to hand. “Why would Kol be summoned so abruptly? He seemed wary, but not afraid.”

  Picus shook his head. “Tuari hath neither favor nor use for Stian or his kin. If the archon has staunch witnesses to thy rescuing, he’ll happily bury Kol.”

  “Bury…” Of course, that’s why Kol had said Stian might come for me, if he could not. The gummy bread clogged my gullet. “Iero’s grace, I must go after him…save him.”

  “Fie on that, lad. Ye’d make his good deed a waste and end up broken and prisoned alongside him. None’s so clever as Kol, and he’ll not be easily locked away. They need him.”

  I recalled Stian’s words. “Because of his dancing.”

  “Because his line is fertile!” Saverian’s declaration burst out like floodwaters through a breached dike. “Picus says the Danae have always been slow to reproduce—likely a matter of their long lives—but the problem has grown worse in the years since Llio’s curse. Children have grown so rare among them that these Harrower poisonings are devastating. They can’t replace those lost. For a Danae coupling to produce two offspring, as Kol and Clyste’s parents did, is unheard of. That’s why they were enraged when Clyste’s child disappeared. To learn that she wasted her fertility on a human mate has surely infuriated them all the more.”

  “Aye,” said Picus. “They’re sore diminished from their greatest glory. Tuari blames humankind for all their ills.” The monk’s big hands fell still, and he closed his eyes as if praying. “Sin begets sin.”

  “Fear for survival will drive a species beyond custom and boundaries, Valen.” The physician crouched at my side, her jade-colored eyes drilling holes in my skull. “Picus says that this Tuari’s despite is so great that any bargain worked with a human—especially one of Eodward’s kin—is surely devised to turn upon the human party…”

  …and Elene believed that Osriel had come to Aeginea to bargain for power—a magical alliance to fuel the dread enchantment waiting at Dashon Ra. I could not imagine the magnitude of the working Osriel planned. But surely a backlash from its failure would be his ruin…and Navronne’s. No wonder Saverian was agitated.

  The monk filled my emptied bowl from the ale crock at his elbow, glancing from one of us to the other, his eyes sharply curious. “What troubles thee, friends?”

  I took a swallow of thin ale. “Good Picus, I must get this lady home. She guards Prince Osriel’s health and has been from his side too long. As Kol can care for himself, I’ll see her safely back to her duty. We’ll need a few provisions for the road, lest my poor skills delay us.”

  “But ye said Kol told ye to bide.” His sheepskin dropped into the mud, and his broad brow knotted in concern.

  Who knew how many human days had passed since Osriel had given me up to the Danae? Instinct told me that the winter solstice raced toward us with the speed Nemelez drove her chariot of ice through her demonic lover’s fiery kingdom.

  I drained the bowl and returned it to the monk. “We dare not wait. Tell Kol I’ll return here as soon as may be.”

  We took our leave within the hour. Now I’d had a little rest and food, the cold did not bother me so much, but we bundled my thick hose, winter tunic, belt, boots, and pureblood cloak with Picus’s dried fish, a skin of his ale, a clay bowl, and the remainder of his bread. Picus insisted Saverian keep the blanket he had lent her. “Best I not inhale the scent of a woman lest my dreams illustrate the sins I’ve banished from head and heart.”

  I bowed deeply, crossing my clenched fists over my heart—Gillarine Abbey’s signing speech for farewell and a reminder to remain staunch in one’s vows and devotions. Picus, eyes bright, returned the gesture solemnly. “I shall sincerely try to hold fast to my tottering virtue, Brother Halfbreed. But if a word as to the meaning of this haste should fall upon mine ear at thy return, I do not think Iero would grudge it.”

  “When I can, Brother. When I can.” I grinned and waved as we headed into the chill autumn night.

  At every step of those first hours, Saverian and I worked at cross purposes, my long gait unaccommodating to her quick, careful steps, my inclination to go over obstacles while she preferred under or around. And though I could not see well in the thick dark of the woodland, I could rely on my bent. She could see nothing at all. After she stumbled for a third time, near breaking her skull, I took her arm to steer her between the bare limbs and woody underbrush that snagged her cloak and skirts. That only made our disparities more awkward.

  Before long, she sputtered and shook off my hand. Waving me to go on ahead, she snatched up a dry limb and set it gleaming with yellow light that had naught to do with fire. “I’ll see to my own feet, thank you. By the Mother, how ever does a blind person manage without going mad?” She dogged my steps, tight-lipped save when urging me to go faster.

  Happily, we soon emerged into the open, gently rolling country to the south. I knelt and sought a route to the Sentinel Oak, the only way I knew to get us back to the human plane. As in the garden meadow, the landscape took shape upon my mind’s canvas in a single grand leap of understanding, rather than the slow building of the past. A confusion of tracks sprawled before us—migrations of great herds of elk and wild horses, footpaths of deer and Danae folk, and a great blight of blood in some past epoch—but no settled roads. And, unfortunately, the oak lay hundreds of quellae to the southwest, beyond expansive forests, a sizable rise in elevation, and at least two major river crossings. To travel the distance afoot would take us more than a month.

  “But you’ve learned to journey as Kol does,” said Saverian, when I announced this unhappy news. Like a fine hunting hound, she seemed poised to charge off in whatever direction I pointed.

  “Only once,” I said, sitting back on my heels and scratching my head. “And yes, I ended up in approximately the correct location. But I’ve too little familiarity with Aeginea to know many landmarks to use for shifting. Danae wanderkins are supposed to explore for years to learn the landforms and plants and trees and such.”

  Snowflakes flurried from overburdened clouds, melting quickly on our cloaks. A frost wind from the south had whipped the woman’s deep-hued cheeks to a rosy brown. I’d been so sure I could get us home. Cocky wanderkin, Kol would say. Recognize thy limits.

  Saverian was not so easily discouraged. “Osriel says that human lands and Aeginea are actually the same; we just experience different aspects of them in the two planes. You’ve traveled all over. You know Navronne.”

  “But no Navron cities exist in Aeginea, no roads, no houses. The trees and forests are all grown up differently…”

  Yet she was right. The terrain should be the same. Since I had walked into Aeginea, I had seen the chasm of the River Kay, the familiar climb from the valley of the Kay toward the mountains, and the rock of Fortress Groult, even though the fortress itself did not exist in this plane.

  “Come on.” I made for the top of a rocky little knob half a quellae ahead, stopping only when I reached its crest. Squinting and puzzling at the landforms, I reached up to clear the melted droplets from my lashes, only to see a sickly thread of pale blue snaking about my fingers and up my arm into my sleeve. Laughter welled up from deep inside.

  “The humor in this situation entirely escapes me,” said Saverian, heaving and gasping as she finished the sharp little climb and halted beside me. Her magelight had pal
ed to the color of cream, and breath plumes wreathed her head. Her vehemence triggered a bout of coughing, aborted by a great sneeze.

  “Are you all right?” I said. Her flushed cheeks flared brighter than her magical light.

  “Well enough, considering I’m hiking into nowhere with a man whose walking pace is a modest gallop. Is that the joke?”

  “I knew you’d wish no coddling,” I said, shoving my bundle of clothes and provisions into her hands. “You should have yelled at me to slow down.”

  I unlaced my braies and shirt. She stared as if I were a lunatic. Which I believed I was. “Indeed, physician, I am the great joke. Here I’ve been so preoccupied with Danae secrets, princely deviltry, Kol, Elene, and what in Iero’s name will happen to the lighthouse, not to mention this confounded route finding and the nature of Aeginea, that I’ve completely forgotten my lessons. If you’ll pardon my boldness, I am going to remove my clothes just now and attempt to do as you suggest—see if I can make some use of this motley collection of strangeness that is my body. Yell at me if you see anyone coming.”

  She held out her hand to take my shirt, a smile tweaking the thin lips into something altogether more pleasant than their usual sardonic set. She waved her hand at my disrobing. “Please. Do whatever you must to get me home.”

  I grinned and left the rest of my garb in her custody. For certain she was no wilting ninny.

  Sitting cross-legged atop the little knob, I listened for the voices of stone. It seemed to take quite a while—or rather I managed it only after setting aside all fretful sense of time. Once I had rediscovered that quiet place where only a few faint declarations of Forever and Grind intruded, I allowed my Danae senses free rein and used the cascade of sensation to expand and deepen my Cartamandua seeing.